Why Now?
The creation of horsesmouth.co.uk reflects a number of growing trends:
- the growth of social platforms on the web, and the rise of user generated content and peer to peer networks (Web 2.0)
- the drive to enliven the voluntary and public sectors through ‘user-centric’ initiatives and through increasing engagement of social enterprise in service provision
- the increased need for more meaningful and relevant forms of social responsibility and employee engagement
- the demand for new forms of positive social engagement in a fragmented world, along with the rise of the expert consumer/ patient / litigant / citizen etc.
Online, people are already experiencing and building valuable, supportive relationships with other people that they will never meet, reflected through sites such as MySpace, Bebo, Second Life, Hi5, Faceparty etc. However, in spite of this trend, the numbers in formal e-mentoring are small, involving thousands rather than millions with people still not aware of the value of their own life experiences, or of the potential they have to help others by sharing them.
